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Marching to our DNA

5/21/2017

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The run up to the last Bundesliga game of the season saw Berlin at its summer best with clear clue skies and blazing sunshine.  The day itself was less impressive but still warm and dry and that is all you need when it comes to a pre-match “Fan-March” towards the Olympiastadion.  There was much to celebrate with the impending entry to European competition and, in just a couple of months the 125th Jubilee for the club.  All we had to do was not lose to Leverkusen and we’d be directly into the group stages of the Europa Cup.  An important game to end the season and with our home form this season quite achievable you might think.  But I have been told more times than I care to think about that build into Hertha’s DNA is the ability to lose important matches where other teams always seem to be able to pull a performance out of the bag just when it’s needed.
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Hertha fans gathered from far and wide at Theodor-Huess-Platz ready for walk up to the Olympiastadion prior to the game. Fan groups had created a 125th Jubilee scarf and had big boxes of them for sale prior to the march. I was there early enough to buy one but the sold out really quickly. I stupidly didn’t think to buy three so I had two for my friends who had not arrived yet. I thought they were just behind me and there were a lot of scarves. It later appeared I was very wrong as not long afterwards they ran out. I just didn’t think – public apology for messing up - sorry guys, you know who you are.

The march was a great experience and good to be marching to the ground with friends amongst all the flags and pyros.  Rather than me waffling on about it you can get a taste of the event through the photos and video clips shown below. 
Some still shots of the march . . . 
Ok, perhaps the less said about the game itself the better. Its fair to say this important game, that could have put us straight into the Europa Cup group stages . . . didn’t go well. After just five minutes Chicharito scored after what looked to me like a foul on one of our players (I couldn’t see who). At this stage there were no worries as we’d come back from behind before and we were at home after all.

I started to wonder if it was going to be our day when Weiser missed two opportunities the first of which resulted in a playful pat on the head from Marvin Plattenhardt. Then, just past the half our mark Leverkusen strung together some passes including a neat back heel and bang, we were 0:2 down. It got worse just before half time when John Brooks lost the ball trying to take it away from our penalty area and bang, it became 0:3.
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Just past the hour Darida fouled in the box and Kissling put away the penalty - 0:4 this wasn’t going to plan.

Even at this time however the fans were still supporting the team and never gave up singing, chanting and giving it their all.
In the 71st minute Mitchell Weiser managed to bundle the ball over the time to make it 1:4 with what on another day could have been a hat trick.

In the 81st and 90th minutes Leverkusen finished off the worse defeat I had witnessed in the flesh. Perhaps the lads were under too much pressure with all the "Hertha-International" slogans? Who knows, certainly not me. At least Sami Allagui got a farewell goal from the spot before he heads off the St Pauli in the summer. A bitter sweet kind of day really in that we are at least in the Europa Cup qualifies like last year and never sank below sixth all season but tainted by the nature of this last game.
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The team thanking the fans for their support
Even after all this it had still been a great day even if we spent a couple of hours before the game marching to what appears to be built into Hertha’s DNA – losing the big match. But hey, that’s football and as I said earlier, we never dropped below sixth place this season and finished one place higher than last year. That can’t be bad.
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Against L€ipzig in photos

5/9/2017

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There is not very much of a positive nature to say about Hertha’s fight against RassenBallsport L€ipzig other than the support and some of the banners.  We were outplayed in pretty much all areas. I believe I am correct in saying both Brooks and Langkamp picked up their fifth yellows. This, together with Per Skjelbred pulling a thigh muscle leaves us even more exposed away in struggling Darmstadt. 
The Choreo was impressive although hard to see what it was if you didn’t know already. 

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The sentiment was hard to criticise however.  “Die Wahren Totengräber Des Fussballs” – “The real grave diggers of football” with pictues of chacters such as Blatter, Platini et al.
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If you have a spare few minutes you can watch it all here . . .
All in all, at 1:4 down things could have gone better on the night but I was still proud to be there and I’ll be back for the last home game against Leverkusen.
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International Hertha Supporters

5/6/2017

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The subject of the international supporters is something dear to my heart for fairly obvious reasons.  Before I even start however I feel obliged to make clear that I speak only for myself here and claim no platform to speak for others.  So, having cleared that up why follow a club based hundreds of miles away from the land of my birth?
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I first came to Berlin back in 2006 as a city break.  I had already visited a number of European cities on long weekends and I was interested in the history of the city.  There was added interest as there is, allegedly, a little German blood running through my veins and my wife is half German so it made sense to visit the capital.  Being a sensible sort of chap that’s exactly what we did and set off for a four day break in the magnificent city that is Berlin.
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Well, what can I say, I came, I saw and I was conquered.  We fell in love with the place and returned again, again and again.  Very early on we decided to go and watch some football in the historic Olympiastadion just as a cultural experience.  Sadly I can no longer recall the exact game that we first saw but clearly it made quite an impact as I started following Hertha from that point onwards and became increasing involved going to more and more matches.  At first this involved buying more and more day tickets but for the last five seasons I have had a season ticket for the Olympiastadion.
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I think that where you are born does not, and indeed should not, dictate where you end up feeling a connection to - where you feel at home.  Perhaps the words of Marvin Gaye are appropriate here - “Wherever I hang my hat (that’s my home)”.  Well my black beanie hat is hanging on a peg in my hall in Berlin and it’s is increasingly here where I feel comfortable, where I feel at home.  A massive part of that now is following Hertha and the people I have met in Berlin through doing so.

I am lucky in that I spend a lot of time in Berlin; many fans need to keep up to speed from whichever country they normally live.  Far bigger clubs than Hertha are promoting an international fan base and the associated merchandising sales by touring the Far East or The United States.  While I am not suggesting Hertha could do anything like that, in my opinion it would be a mistake to discriminate too heavily against even one time visitors to the Olympiastadion.  I feel that this is the case for no other reason than the process of becoming a dedicated fan has to start somewhere and it’s not always rooted in the ground being in the next street or because your father, grandfather or uncle followed the team.  There are increasing numbers of international supporters and many of them are repeat offenders.  I have heard of other people who come from Switzerland and the UK for most home games.  These are dedicated fans that have something to contribute and have opinions just like any Herthaner.

One difficulty in following a club in another country can be the issue of language.  If, like me, you are “linguistically challenged” this can pose certain difficulties in keeping up to speed but also a sense of involvement in the club.  Naturally most of the content relating to a club like Hertha appears in German.  BT Sport now shows a selection of Bundesliga games in the UK and ITV4 show the week’s highlights.  Comparatively recently Hertha have launched English twitter accounts and little videos on YouTube providing some background in English.  These, although not perfect by any means, are major steps forward for international fans that use English as a lingua franca.
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Clearly there is a growing interest in Hertha by fans outside Berlin/Brandenburg and even Germany.  There are already “official fan clubs” (OFCs) for Hertha in a number of countries including:  Denmark, Sweden, Hungary, Spain and of course the UK. 

There are English language Twitter accounts by enthusiastic Hertha fans and fan groups such as @HerthaBerlinUK, @HerthaBerlinUSA and @Hertha_Ireland.  I also do try to do my bit by tweeting photos and video clips of matches and Hertha related stuff.  I do feel however that more that could be done that would help but be a little less ambitious than flying the team out to China to play in a good will tour.

One suggestion might be to host forums to discuss matters concerning the club where International can interact with English speaking Berliners and take part in informed debates on matters like: the local fan scene, the new stadium, financial backers and even pink shirts if they choose.  Such a forum could easily be hosted on local Official Fan club websites such as Axel Kruse Jugend rather than by Hertha themselves.  They key thing being that it has to have sufficient inquisitive contributors matched by well informed contributors as well.
 
Another suggestion might be to have an informative podcasts in English with knowledgeable guests that could debate matters of interest – perhaps even some of the English speaking players.  Some of the generic Bundesliga pods are grotesquely biased towards the likes of Bayern in my opinion and so are a little difficult to stomach at times.
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The key to all this is keeping international fans well informed about what’s going on in the club from pink shirts to the prospect of a new stadium.  Where the connection becomes truly alive is when links are forged between International supporters and local fans.
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